Hi,

I am an environmental and natural resource economist who studies the effects of projected climate change on our state’s built environment. The built environment in my current project includes bridges, roads, water/sewer, and many different types of buildings.

Prior to arriving in Alaska, I was an economist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Boulder, CO USA) where I built sophisticated models to study the effects of weather variability on the U.S. economy.

As a researcher who works in the arctic where these changes seem to be the most pronounced, I am happy to write in to climate commons to report on my observations.

It has dawned on me more and more how crucial true information is for the modern world. Not only my first encounters with propaganda, as I did my (compulsory) national service on the Soviet border at the end of the Cold War, and having read George Orwell as well as one of my favourite authors, John le Carre, made me aware of how much power that lies in swaying the public by lies. There are anectotal evidence of witch-hunts in the middle ages, which could only happened because of lies, prejudice and superstition, and when I read about ‘The Great Leap’ from the Cultural Revolution in China, I wonder how on Earth such a thing could take place. Commonplace to all these stories is the lack of knowledge, critical voices, and true information. I have also seen documentaries about how the tobacco and sugar have influenced the public information about drawbacks associated with their products, but realise that someone is twisting the truth, but one cannot be sure who. Presumably the lobby groups of those industries… But the even more recent encounter with lies in the media scared me the most: when one nation invaded another on the basis of lies. Sure, the invaded country was headed by a brutal dictator, but that argument probably could not justify a war…? After Hans Blixt and the UN had spent years searchin for evidence of WMD in country, they had come up empty handed. The country was flooded with volunteer ‘human shields’ just at the run-up forthe invasion, and in this golden opportunity for spying the living daylight out of the country, still the secret services didn’t manage to produce convincing evidence. A prominent British weapons specialist was found dead after having stated on the BBC that the Iraq dossier was ’sexed up’ (WMD could be launched within 45 minutes). Iraq relented at one point and produced a massive report to the UN, that the invading countries snatched and didn’t let anybody else read. Then there were false evidences: alleged radioactive materials from Nigeria, satellite images shown in the UN, alleged links between Saddam & Al Quaida, etc. The bottom line was that a war was started from lies. That’s scary.

Hi All,

I’ve been working on various projects about weather and climate change; there seem to be a number of sub-plots, sub-projects, off-shoots, tangents, etc. etc. First, there’s a weblog which I hope will eventually provide a useful research archive of relevant contemporary artists’ projects. The blog lives at http://StrangeWeather.info.

Another recent project (2006) took the form of a group exhibition and was fairly whimsical: out of the blue.

I’ve been interested in the conflicted relationship between art and the documentary. At times they seem to be pitted against each other…

Currently I am working on a series of paintings. In brief, I pull images — news documentation of climate events and disasters — and re-enact them as paintings.

Here’s an introduction to a subset of these that focus on post-Katrina New Orleans, by way of an announcement and a few links :

Hello All,
I’m happy to announce after several months in the lab, we will be launching the eSAT campaign in March 2007.
eSAT (which stands for Environmental Standardized art Techniques) provides free environmental signage to schools around the world.

Teachers and students will be able to pick their favorite cause, favorite artist, and favorite language. Artists designing eSAT signage includes an all-star roster of artists, designers and celebrities. I currently have a recycling bin that Hunter S Thompson designed for us in the Global Inheritance. The artists designing for eSAT are in the same neighborhood (but probably not as rad as Hunter). All eSAT signage will be logo free.

Back when I was going to school, any cause based signage you’d find in the classroom or in the halls was usually super corny, horribly designed and communicated the message as if you were a total moron. kids today have been marketed to since Day 1, so the artwork, message and messenger is paramount.

I’ve been shopping. And wrapping. And making gifts too. But more of the shopping and wrapping. I tried to buy local, avoid new wrapping paper, etc., but still it seems like a whole car load of presents for the family and friends. At what cost to our planet is all this consumption. I heard a really good segment on our local public Radio, WGBH (listen to it here):

“Boston College economist and sociologist Juliet Schor. says the Christmas season is an especially bad time of year for the environment: 25 percent of total spending occurs now and household garbage increases by 25 percent.
What kind of ecological footprint are you leaving behind?”

I was talking to my mother about this and she said that it was fine if I wanted to recycled the five garbage bags full of wrapping paper as long as I didn’t bum everyone out by doing it on Christmas morning. I find most people think that Christmas is the time to have a holiday from responsible choices for our environment.
Whats the solution?

Here is a sample of the range of stories not in the local press. Your local media may cover one or two, but there are so many not covered at all.

It is easy to create custom Google groups: just click on “Edit this personalized page” and follow your nose. Thanks to Jock Gill for this great new source.